■HONG KONG
Disneyland plans revealed
Disney’s plans to expand its Disneyland park include the construction of three new themed areas, including one with rides based on the animated Toy Story films, a newspaper reported yesterday. Work on the four-year, HK$3.63 billion (US$465.4 million) expansion was set to start in December once detailed approval to the plans has been given by the Hong Kong government, the South China Morning Post said. The three new areas — the two others are called Grizzly Trail and Mystic Point — are to increase the size of the park by 23 percent.
■AUSTRALIA
Court in landmark ruling
A court ruled yesterday that a quadriplegic man who has begged to be allowed to die has the right to order his carers to stop feeding him. In a landmark decision, Western Australia’s chief judge Wayne Martin said the Brightwater Care Group would not be criminally responsible if it stopped feeding and hydrating severely paralyzed Christian Rossiter, 49. Martin said Rossiter had the right to direct his own treatment, and that food and water “should not be administered against his wishes.” The ruling sets a legal precedent in the nation, where assisting someone to take their own life is a crime punishable by life in prison in some states.
■AUSTRALIA
US doctor’s court date set
A trial date has been set for a US doctor charged with manslaughter in the deaths of three patients at a rural hospital. The Queensland State Supreme Court yesterday scheduled Jayant Patel’s trial for March 22 next year. Patel is charged with three counts of manslaughter and two counts of grievous bodily harm. The charges relate to his job as director of surgery between 2003 and 2005 at a state-run hospital in Bundaberg, 370km north of Brisbane. Prosecutors say Patel showed a pattern of negligence by performing surgeries he’d been banned from undertaking in the US, misdiagnosing patients and using sloppy surgical techniques.
■HONG KONG
Party lists ‘black spots’
The territory’s largest political party has compiled a list of escalators across the city where women are vulnerable to unwittingly exposing themselves to Peeping Toms, a report said yesterday. The Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong released the study in response to the sharp increase in people taking indecent photos of women using mobile phones, the South China Morning Post reported. The list of mainly shopping centers was compiled by party members who went to the locations to confirm that women were vulnerable. The researchers took “wide-angle” pictures of the “black spots,” the Post said.
■NEW ZEALAND
Exorcism family escape jail
Five siblings escaped jail yesterday after being found guilty of the manslaughter of their niece during a Maori exorcism ceremony. Janet Moses, a 22-year-old mother of two, died from drowning in October 2007 after members of her extended family forced water down her throat during a ceremony to lift a curse known as a makutu. The High Court in Wellington imposed a curfew order and work sentences on the five, ranging in age from 36 to 52, although prosecutors had sought prison sentences. Justice Simon France said Moses’ death did not occur because of “fanatical beliefs.” “Makutu did not kill her. She drowned,” he said. “It is undoubted that, at some stage, hysteria entered the room.”
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